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113-574: The self-supported nature of the BikingMan races makes it different from supported ultra-distance events like the Race Across America (RAAM), in which each racer has a large support crew with multiple vehicles and where pure performance cycling is needed to finish these races. The carbon footprint of the races are kept to a minimum, support cars outside BikingMan organizations media cars, are strictly forbidden. Being self-supported means that drafting

226-495: A time trial , and the final overall finish time includes rest periods. Thus, the winner is the rider who can best combine fast riding with short and infrequent stops. The winner usually finishes in eight to nine days, after riding approximately 22 hours per day through the varied terrain of the United States . The addition of the 8-person team division has enabled finish times of slightly over five days. Each racer or team has

339-470: A collection of adventurers, including one competing as "Samson". Many riders dropped out of the race after completing the initial stages, as the physical effort the tour required was just too much. Only a mere 24 entrants remained at the end of the fourth stage. The race finished on the edge of Paris at Ville d'Avray, outside the Restaurant du Père Auto, before a ceremonial ride into Paris and several laps of

452-536: A course in the sacred valley of the Incas around Cusco city. Following the global pandemic and many locked-down countries, the race calendar has been modified by the race organisation to adapt to the situation with the races in Brazil, Peru and Laos canceled, while the 2020 edition of BikingMan Corsica, initially scheduled for April 2020, is planned for October 2020. The 2020 series will therefore be composed of 3 events out of

565-471: A crisis meeting on 20 November 1902 on the middle floor of L'Auto ' s office at 10 Rue du Faubourg Montmartre, Paris. The last to speak was the chief cycling journalist, a 26-year-old named Géo Lefèvre . Lefèvre suggested a six-day race of the sort popular on the track but all around France. Long-distance cycle races were a popular means to sell more newspapers, but nothing of the length that Lefèvre suggested had been attempted. The first Tour de France

678-406: A damaged bicycle for another was allowed only in 1923 . Desgrange stood against the use of multiple gears, and for many years insisted riders use wooden rims, fearing the heat of braking while coming down mountains would melt the glue that held the tires on metal rims (however, they were finally allowed in 1937 ). By the end of the 1920s, Desgrange believed he could not beat what he believed were

791-502: A distance of 2,963 miles. Limiting himself to riding 10 hours per day, he completed the race in 14 days, 11 hours and 50 minutes, besting the previous record by 6 days. He rode about 200 miles a day, averaging about 20 mph. Prior to this, he was stationed in Japan and raced frequently in their "Keirin," bicycle racing track sport. He owns a machining company in Racine, Wisconsin, and produced

904-508: A factory. He also cut the entry fee from 20 to 10 francs and set the first prize at 12,000 francs and the prize for each day's winner at 3,000 francs. The winner would thereby win six times what most workers earned in a year. That attracted between 60 and 80 entrants – the higher number may have included serious inquiries and some who dropped out – among them not just professionals but amateurs, some unemployed, and some simply adventurous. The first Tour de France started almost outside

1017-490: A fragment of bone was removed. Unable to train for months, he was able to compete again the following year. As noted above, unlike most multi-day bicycle races such as the Tour de France , RAAM has a single stage, i.e., there is no specified distance to travel each day. There are no designated rest periods for food and sleep, whose timing must be decided by racers and their crews. The clock runs continuously from start to finish as in

1130-446: A jersey, he wears the yellow one, since the general classification is the most important one in the race. Between 1905 and 1912 inclusive, in response to concerns about rider cheating in the 1904 race , the general classification was awarded according to a point-based system based on their placings in each stage, and the rider with the lowest total of points after the Tour's conclusion was

1243-516: A long-distance solo attack in the mountains which none of the other elite riders could answer, resulting in an eventual winning margin of nearly eighteen minutes. In 1973 he did not win because he did not enter the Tour; instead, his great rival Luis Ocaña won. Merckx's winning streak came to an end when he finished 2nd to Bernard Thévenet in 1975 . During this era, race director Felix Lévitan began to recruit additional sponsors, sometimes accepting prizes in kind if he could not get cash. In 1975 ,

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1356-488: A maker's name. There was no place for individuals in the post-1930s teams, and so Desgrange created regional teams, generally from France, to take in riders who would not otherwise have qualified. The original touriste-routiers mostly disappeared, but some were absorbed into regional teams. Desgrange died at home on the Mediterranean coast on 16 August 1940. The race was taken over by his deputy, Jacques Goddet . The Tour

1469-434: A race of individuals. The first Tours were open to whoever wanted to compete. Most riders were in teams that looked after them. The private entrants were called touriste-routiers— tourists of the road—from 1923 and were allowed to take part provided they make no demands on the organisers. Some of the Tour's most colourful characters have been touriste-routiers. One finished each day's race and then performed acrobatic tricks in

1582-470: A relaxed pace until close to the line, only then disputing the final placings that would give them points. The format changed over time. The Tour originally ran around the perimeter of France. Cycling was an endurance sport, and the organisers realised the sales they would achieve by creating supermen of the competitors. Night riding was dropped after the second Tour in 1904, when there had been persistent cheating when judges could not see riders. That reduced

1695-509: A result, the UCI decided that each of Armstrong's seven wins would be revoked. This decision cleared the names of many people, including lesser-known riders, reporters, team medical staff, and even the wife of a rider who had their reputations tarnished or had been forced from the sport due to pressure from Armstrong and his support staff. Much of this only became possible after Floyd Landis came forward to USADA . Also around this time, an investigation by

1808-495: A rider coping with a mechanical problem—which the rules insisted he repair alone—could lose so much time that it cost him the race. Equally, riders could finish so separated that time gained or lost on one or two days could decide the whole race. Judging the race by points removed over-influential time differences but discouraged competitors from riding hard. It made no difference whether they finished fast or slow or separated by seconds or hours, so they were inclined to ride together at

1921-502: A rider will be given the honor of leading the rest of the peloton onto the circuit finish in their final Tour, as was the case for Jens Voigt and Sylvain Chavanel , among others. From the late 1970s and into the early 1980s, the Tour was dominated by Frenchman Bernard Hinault , who would become the third rider to win five times. Hinault was defeated by Joop Zoetemelk in 1980 when he withdrew, and only once in his Tour de France career

2034-476: A small cloth panel on their chest that named the team for which they normally rode. The situation became critical at the start of the 1960s. Sales of bicycles had fallen, and bicycle factories were closing. There was a risk, the trade said, that the industry would die if factories were not allowed the publicity of the Tour de France. The Tour returned to trade teams in 1962. In the same year, Émilion Amaury, owner of le Parisien Libéré , became financially involved in

2147-538: A support crew that follows in vehicles to provide food, water, mechanical repairs and medical aid. During the night, a vehicle with flashing lights is required to follow each rider to ensure safety. Having to ride continuously for days with little to no sleep puts this event in the category of ultra-distance cycling races. The continuous physical output places considerable strain on the competitors as well as their support crews. As many as 50% of solo participants drop out due to exhaustion or for medical reasons. In addition,

2260-401: A team to ride the Tour once more, but Armstrong refused because Landis was a convicted doper. Landis joined OUCH , an American continental team, and not long after this initiated contact with USADA to discuss Armstrong. In 2011 , Cadel Evans became the first Australian to win the Tour after coming up just short several times in the previous few editions. The 2012 Tour de France was won by

2373-457: Is not a stage race , the clock never stops from the moment the riders leave the start to the moment that they reach the finish. Orienteering plays a major role as most of the races' locations are unknown to most participants. The complete rule set is available in the race manual of every race. BikingMan events are all covered by a limited number of media cars from the organization. The events are therefore presented live on social networks, namely

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2486-462: Is not allowed, receiving any form of support from other racers, friends, or family is not allowed; all food, accommodation, repairs, etc., must be purchased from commercial sources if they can find any on the road. The organizer provides a mandatory route, a GPS tracker to monitor each participant's progress and prevent cheating, as well as a road book. Riders must strategically choose how much time to devote to riding, resting, and refueling each day. It

2599-612: Is similar to RAAM in that it is a non-stop bicycle race across the US, but it covers an even longer distance and riders are self-supported, meaning that all support from other racers, friends, family, or organizers is forbidden. Supplies and services must be obtained from commercial sources and no support vehicles are allowed. Because the course has varied, performances from different years are not entirely comparable. Records are usually expressed in terms of average speed, not total time, to account in part for differences in course length. For many years,

2712-519: Is the oldest and most prestigious of the three Grand Tours , which include the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España . The race was first organized in 1903 to increase sales for the newspaper L'Auto (which was an ancestor of L'Équipe ). and has been held annually since, except when it was not held from 1915 to 1918 and 1940 to 1946 due to the two World Wars . As the Tour gained prominence and popularity,

2825-419: Is the second-oldest jersey awarding classification in the Tour de France. The mountains classification was added to the Tour de France in the 1933 edition and was first won by Vicente Trueba . Prizes for the classification were first awarded in 1934 . During stages of the race containing climbs, points are awarded to the first riders to reach the top of each categorized climb, with points available for up to

2938-559: The Crocodile Trophy , the endurance mountain bike race held annually in Australia. He was the RAAM title-holder at the time of his death. In its traditional form, RAAM is a solo competitor event – a non-stop individual time trial. As noted above, this idea was expanded in 1989 with the creation of the new HPV (Human Powered Vehicle) category as a four-person relay ; race organizers called this

3051-475: The Great American Bike Race . RAAM is one of the longest annual endurance events in the world. All entrants must prove their abilities by competing in any of several qualifying events, completing a course within a specified time period. Currently, RAAM is several hundred miles longer than the Tour de France , and the two races differ in many other aspects. The courses of both races have varied over

3164-724: The IncaDivide race , which took 17 athletes in the Andes mountains of Ecuador and Peru. A brutal race where the main challenge for every racer was to battled against high altitude cycling conditions of the Andes . In 2018, BikingMan introduced the 1st ultra cycling championship which gathered athletes from around the globe to race the Hajar mountains of Oman, across the Andes Cordillera of Peru with IncaDivide race , around Corsica and in Taiwan. On

3277-625: The "Sprint" BikingMan 2018 races (Oman and Corsica), base camps were built at the checkpoints where athletes could rest. Compulsory stops at staffed checkpoints ensure athletes timestamp their progression, validate their physical state and eventually scratch the athletes who don't respect the closing times of every checkpoint. Participants enter the season ranking once they have completed, as finishers, 2 BikingMan series races. The 2019 season introduced 2 new events: Laos in May, and Portugal in September, bringing

3390-517: The 6 initially planned. The 2021 season has been announced with 7 events focusing mostly on Europe (4 events in France + Portugal) + Brazil and Oman. Brazil will be part of the series for its first time after the canceled 2020 edition. Race Across America The Race Across America , or RAAM , is an ultra-distance road cycling race held across the United States that started in 1982 as

3503-563: The Café Reveil-Matin at the junction of the Melun and Corbeil roads in the village of Montgeron . It was waved away by the starter, Georges Abran, at 3:16 p.m. on 1 July 1903. L'Auto hadn't featured the race on its front page that morning. Among the competitors were the eventual winner, Maurice Garin , his well-built rival Hippolyte Aucouturier , the German favourite Josef Fischer , and

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3616-497: The Darracq company. De Dion believed Le Vélo gave Darracq too much attention and him too little. De Dion was rich and could afford to indulge his whims. The new newspaper appointed Henri Desgrange as the editor. He was a prominent cyclist and owner with Victor Goddet of the velodrome at the Parc des Princes . L'Auto sales were lower than the rival it was intended to surpass, leading to

3729-473: The French government into doping in cycling revealed that way back during the 1998 Tour, close to 90% of the riders who were tested, retroactively tested positive for EPO. The result of these doping scandals being that in the case of Landis in 2006, and Contador in 2010, new winners were declared in Óscar Pereiro and Andy Schleck , respectively; however, in the case of the seven Tours revoked from Armstrong, there

3842-504: The Human Powered Vehicle Race Across America. HPV RAAM was slated as a platform for technology advancement in cycling aerodynamics and human powered propulsion, but it also paved the way for more team competitions thereafter. Favored to win, Team Gold Rush led most of the way but did not finish. First, second and third places went to Team Lightning, Team Cronos and Team Strawberry , respectively. Team Lightning set

3955-516: The Instagram and Facebook accounts of the organization. During races, and on a daily basis, a story-based article is published on the Exposure page of the organization, as well as an additional article for the leaderboard once the race is completed. All participants are equipped with a GPS tracker , which allows to share their position on a live-tracking website. In 2017 was held the first BikingMan event;

4068-455: The Parc des Princes. Garin dominated the race, winning the first and last two stages, at 25.68 kilometres per hour (15.96 mph). The last rider, Arsène Millocheau , finished 64h 47m 22s behind him. L'Auto 's mission was accomplished, as circulation of the publication doubled throughout the race, making the race something much larger than Desgrange had ever hoped for. Such was the passion that

4181-504: The Tour among other events—replaced Leblanc in 2007, having been assistant director for three years. In 1993 ownership of L'Équipe moved to the Amaury Group , which formed Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) to oversee its sports operations, although the Tour itself is operated by its subsidiary the Société du Tour de France. 1988 onward was arguably the beginning of what can be referred to as

4294-421: The Tour de France features a different route each year (alternating between clockwise and counterclockwise circuits around France) and is about 2,300 miles long; the distance is divided into individual daily stages spread over the course of about 3 weeks including rest days and contested at much higher on-bike speeds, but much lower overall average speed. The first incarnation of RAAM, The Great American Bike Race,

4407-451: The Tour de France in the same year, the first rider to do so. Louison Bobet was the first great French rider of the post-war period and the first rider to win the Tour in three successive years, 1953 , 1954 and 1955 . Jacques Anquetil became the first cyclist to win the Tour de France five times, in 1957 and from 1961 to 1964 . He stated before the 1961 Tour that he would gain the yellow jersey on day one and wear it all through

4520-467: The Tour de France using banned substances, and he was no longer considered the winner by the Tour's organizers. In July 2008, the Tour reconfirmed his victory but with an asterisk label to indicate his doping offences. In 2013 Jan Ullrich , the first German rider to win the Tour (in 1997 ), admitted to blood doping. During the 1998 Tour de France , a doping scandal known as the Festina Affair shook

4633-427: The Tour de France, and cycling in general. Roche was the first winner from Ireland; however, in the years leading up to his victory, cyclists from numerous other countries began joining the ranks of the peloton. In 1982 , Sean Kelly of Ireland (points) and Phil Anderson of Australia (young rider) became the first winners of any Tour classifications from outside cycling's Continental Europe heartlands, while Lévitan

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4746-510: The Tour was not held in July. This saw the first of two successive victories for Tadej Pogačar of UAE Team Emirates , who was the first Slovenian winner, and the second youngest (at 21) after Henri Cornet in 1904. He also won the mountain and youth classifications, becoming the first rider since Eddy Merckx in 1972 to win three jerseys in a single Tour. Pogačar repeated this triple in 2021 . On stage 13 of this Tour, sprinter Mark Cavendish tied

4859-465: The Tour, despite finishing in second place three times, and in third place five times (including his final Tour at the age of 40). Doping had become a serious problem, culminating in the death of Tom Simpson in 1967 , after which riders went on strike, although the organisers suspected sponsors provoked them. The Union Cycliste Internationale introduced limits to daily and overall distances, imposed rest days, and tests were introduced for riders. It

4972-462: The Tour. He made Félix Lévitan co-organizer of the Tour, and it was decided that Levitan would focus on the financial issues, while Jacques Goddet was put in charge of sporting issues. The Tour de France was meant for professional cyclists, but in 1961 the organisation started the Tour de l'Avenir , the amateur version. Twice, in 1949 and 1952 , Italian rider Fausto Coppi won the Giro d'Italia and

5085-487: The Tour: a consortium of Sports and Miroir Sprint . Each organised a candidate race. L'Équipe and Le Parisien Libéré had La Course du Tour de France, while Sports and Miroir Sprint had La Ronde de France. Both were five stages, the longest the government would allow because of shortages. L'Équipe 's race was better organised and appealed more to the public because it featured national teams that had been successful before

5198-538: The ability to walk, he continued to cycle using a handbike. Canadian cyclist Wayne Phillips was paralyzed 1985 when he was struck by a hit-and-run driver in New Mexico. On June 15, 2015, while in 3rd place, Anders Tesgaard of Denmark was hit by an inattentive truck driver in West Virginia. The driver came from behind and hit Tesgaard at 60 mph. Tesgaard suffered a severe brain injury and multiple fractured bones. He

5311-418: The aforementioned classifications wears a distinctive jersey, with riders leading multiple classifications wearing the jersey of the most prestigious that he leads. In addition to these four classifications, there are several minor and discontinued classifications that are competed for during the race. The oldest and most sought-after classification in the Tour de France is the general classification. All of

5424-478: The all-time stage wins record in the Tour. The oldest and main competition in the Tour de France is known as the "general classification", for which the yellow jersey is awarded; the winner of this is said to have won the race. A few riders from each team aim to win overall, but there are three further competitions to draw riders of all specialties: points, mountains, and a classification for young riders with general classification aspirations. The leader of each of

5537-476: The bicycle frames for the 1972 Olympics, built many of the chrome Schwinn Paramounts in the 1970s and the Schwinn Superiors in the 1980s. With his sixth win in 2019, Christoph Strasser passed the late Jure Robič of Slovenia as the all-time record holder for solo RAAM victories. He is also the first to take three Titles in a row. Robič was killed in September 2010 in a collision with a car while training for

5650-501: The chance he worked so hard for with a stunning and improbable solo breakaway on Stage 17 in which he set himself up to win the Tour in the final time trial, which he then did. Not long after the Tour was over, however, Landis was accused of doping and had his Tour win revoked. Over the next few years, a new star in Alberto Contador came onto the scene; however, during the 2007 edition, a veteran Danish rider, Michael Rasmussen ,

5763-461: The climbers (polka dot jersey), young rider classification for riders under the age of 26 (white jersey), and the team classification , based on the first three finishers from each team on each stage. Achieving a stage win also provides prestige, often accomplished by a team's sprint specialist or a rider taking part in a breakaway. A similar race for women was held under various names between 1984 and 2009. Following criticism by campaigners and

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5876-422: The costs too great for most and only 15 competitors had entered. Desgrange had never been wholly convinced and he came close to dropping the idea. Instead, he cut the length to 19 days, changed the dates to 1 to 19 July, and offered a daily allowance to those who averaged at least 20 kilometres per hour (12 mph) on all the stages, equivalent to what a rider would have expected to earn each day had he worked in

5989-480: The country. The 40 hours were to be deducted from a rider's total time at the end of the race. These changes were made to improve safety and shift the emphasis to long-distance riding speed and away from the capacity to endure sleep deprivation. Because the intention was to phase out the traditional format, it was announced that henceforth the official RAAM champion would be the winner of the Solo Enduro division. In

6102-457: The daily and overall distance, but the emphasis remained on endurance. The first mountain stages (in the Pyrenees ) appeared in 1910 . Early tours had long multi-day stages, with the format settling on 15 stages from 1910 until 1924 . After this, stages were gradually shortened, such that by 1936 there were as many as three stages in a single day. Desgrange initially preferred to see the Tour as

6215-496: The decision. McGann says the UVF waited so long "...well aware of the passions aroused by the race." Desgrange's opinion of the fighting and cheating showed in the headline of his reaction in L'Auto : THE END. By the following spring, Desgrange was planning a longer Tour, with 11 stages rather than 6—and this time all in daylight to make any cheating more obvious. Stages in 1905 began between 3 am and 7:30 am. The race captured

6328-447: The doping era. A new drug, erythropoietin (EPO), began to be used; it could not be detected by drug tests of the time. Pedro Delgado won the 1988 Tour de France by a considerable margin, and in 1989 and 1990 Lemond returned from injury and won back-to-back Tours, with the 1989 edition still standing as the closest two-way battle in TDF history, with Lemond claiming an 8-second victory on

6441-466: The doping fiasco of the previous year. Initially it seemed to be a Cinderella story when cancer survivor Lance Armstrong stole the show on Sestriere and kept on riding to the first of his astonishing seven consecutive Tour de France victories; however, in retrospect, 1999 was just the beginning of the doping problem getting much, much worse. Following Armstrong's retirement in 2005 , the 2006 edition saw his former teammate Floyd Landis finally get

6554-606: The early 1970s, the race was dominated by Eddy Merckx , who won the General Classification five times, the Mountains Classification twice, the Points Classification three times and held the record for the most stage victories (34) until overtaken by Mark Cavendish in 2024. Merckx's dominating style earned him the nickname "The Cannibal". In 1969 , he already had a commanding lead when he launched

6667-512: The event grew larger year after year, with riders from around the world showing up to compete. The race was televised on ABC's Wide World of Sports through 1986. In 1989, team divisions were added to introduce new elements of technology and strategy: a category for HPVs and faired bikes resulted in record speeds, and a four-man team division gave racers the option of riding together or taking turns, allowing them to balance higher speeds against longer rest periods. In addition to races across

6780-420: The extra effort to keep the jersey for as long as possible in order to get more publicity for the team and its sponsors. Eddy Merckx wore the yellow jersey for 96 stages, which is more than any other rider in the history of the Tour. Four riders have won the general classification five times in their career: Jacques Anquetil , Eddy Merckx , Bernard Hinault , and Miguel Induráin . The mountains classification

6893-481: The fastest men's speed was by Pete Penseyres in 1986, when he rode 3,107 miles (5,000 km) at an average of 15.40 mph (24.78 km/h). This record was finally broken in 2013 by Christoph Strasser , who then smashed his own record the following year by riding 3,020 miles (4,860 km) at 16.42 mph (26.43 km/h). The fastest woman was Seana Hogan in 1995, who averaged 13.23 mph (21.29 km/h) over 2,912 miles (4,686 km). For many years,

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7006-413: The final time trial to best Laurent Fignon. The early 1990s was dominated by Spaniard Miguel Induráin , who won five Tours from 1991 to 1995 , the fourth, and last, to win five times, and the only five-time winner to achieve those victories consecutively. He wore the race leader's yellow jersey in the Tour de France for 60 days. He holds the record for the most consecutive Tour de France wins and shares

7119-417: The first 10 riders, depending on the classification of the climb. Climbs are classified according to the steepness and length of that particular hill, with more points available for harder climbs. The classification was preceded by the meilleur grimpeur (English: best climber ) which was awarded by the organising newspaper L'Auto to a cyclist who completed each race. The classification awarded no jersey to

7232-491: The first British rider to ever win the Tour, Bradley Wiggins , while finishing on the podium just behind him was Chris Froome , who along with Contador became the next big stars to attempt to contest the giants of Anquetil , Merckx, Hinault, Indurain and Armstrong. Overshadowing the entire sport at this time, however, was the Lance Armstrong doping case , which finally revealed much of the truth about doping in cycling. As

7345-496: The first Tour created in spectators and riders that Desgrange said the 1904 Tour de France would be the last. Cheating was rife, and riders were beaten up by rival fans as they neared the top of the col de la République, sometimes called the col du Grand Bois, outside St-Étienne. The leading riders, including the winner Maurice Garin, were disqualified, though it took the Union Vélocipèdique de France until 30 November to make

7458-514: The first year the winner was 50-year-old Jonathan Boyer , who had won the fourth edition of RAAM twenty-one years earlier. However, interest in the Enduro format rapidly faded among riders, and the division was soon eliminated. The official RAAM champion is now the winner of the Solo Traditional division, which simply measures total elapsed time from west coast to east coast. The Trans Am Bike Race

7571-465: The four-person male division in 2004. The team, whose members were Nathaniel Faulkner, Kerry Ryan, Sean Nealy, and William Innes, averaged 23.06 mph (37.11 km/h) to complete the 2,959 miles (4,762 km) in 5:08:17. The record for an eight-person team was established by Team Bemer in 2022. This squad of riders completed 3,028 miles (4,873 km) in 5:01:52, for an average speed of 24.85 mph (39.99 km/h). In 2021, Leah Goldstein set

7684-695: The full span of the United States, shorter races with a similar format have been included within RAAM; among these are a 24-hour version and the Race Across the West (RAW), typically ending in Durango, Colorado . The solo division of the 2018 race began on June 12 in Oceanside, California ; teams started on June 16, 2018. The finish line was once again in Annapolis , Maryland. The race has been held in many different divisions over

7797-431: The imagination. The Tour returned after its suspension during World War I and continued to grow. Desgrange and his Tour invented bicycle stage racing . Desgrange experimented with different ways of judging the winner. Initially he used total accumulated time (as used in the modern Tour de France) but from 1906 to 1912 by points for placings each day. Desgrange saw problems in judging both by time and by points. By time,

7910-532: The leader until the 1975 Tour de France , when the organizers decided to award a distinctive white jersey with red dots to the leader. This is colloquially referred to in English as the "polka dot" jersey. The climbers' jersey is worn by the rider who, at the start of each stage, has the largest number of climbing points. If the race leader is also leading the Mountains classification, the polka dot jersey will be worn by

8023-627: The mountain's chains of the Pyrenees and the Alps , and (except in 2024 due to preparations for the 2024 Summer Olympics ) a finish on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. The modern editions of the Tour de France consist of 21 day-long stages over a 23 or 24 day period and cover approximately 3,500 kilometres (2,200 mi) total. The race alternates between clockwise and counterclockwise circuits. Twenty to twenty-two teams of eight riders usually compete. All of

8136-422: The next eligible rider in the Mountains standings. At the end of the Tour, the rider holding the most climbing points wins the classification. Some riders may race with the aim of winning this particular competition, while others who gain points early on may shift their focus to the classification during the race. The Tour has five categories for ranking the mountains the race covers. The scale ranges from category 4,

8249-403: The number. National teams caught the public imagination but had a snag: that riders might normally have been in rival trade teams the rest of the season. The loyalty of riders was sometimes questionable, within and between teams. Sponsors were always unhappy about releasing their riders into anonymity for the biggest race of the year, as riders in national teams wore the colours of their country and

8362-474: The other was L'Auto , which had been set up by journalists and businesspeople including Comte Jules-Albert de Dion , Adolphe Clément , and Édouard Michelin in 1899. The rival paper emerged following disagreements over the Dreyfus Affair . De Dion, Clément and Michelin were particularly concerned with Le Vélo —which reported more than cycling—because its financial backer was one of their commercial rivals,

8475-399: The overall fastest RAAM time of 5:01:08 over a shorter course of 2,911 miles (4,685 km), a record which still stands over 2 decades later. In later years team members could ride together to take advantage of drafting, so speeds improved, but in the 1989 race there could only be one rider on the road at a time. Team Action Sports from Bakersfield, California , established the record for

8588-421: The podium. Pogačar won six stages, including five of the last eight stages. With his win, he became only the eighth rider, and the first since Marco Pantani in 1998 , to win the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France in the same calendar year. On stage 5 of the race, sprinter Mark Cavendish won his 35th overall Tour stage win, breaking the tie between him and Eddy Merckx , who held the record for 49 years, for

8701-450: The polka-dot jersey was introduced for the winner of the Mountains Classification . This same year Levitan also introduced the finish of the Tour at the Avenue des Champs-Élysées . Since then, this stage has been largely ceremonial and is generally only contested as a prestigious sprinters' stage. (See 'Notable Stages' below for examples of non-ceremonial finishes to this stage.) Occasionally,

8814-417: The professional women's peloton, a one/two day race ( La Course by Le Tour de France ) was held between 2014 and 2021. The first Tour de France Femmes was held in 2022 . The Tour de France was created in 1903. The roots of the Tour de France trace back to the emergence of two rival sports newspapers in the country. On one hand was Le Vélo , the first and the largest daily sports newspaper in France, on

8927-421: The race takes place on open roads, forcing participants to deal with sometimes dangerous traffic conditions. This represents another major difference between RAAM and more traditional bicycle road races on closed courses. In 2006 the race format changed significantly with the addition of a Solo Enduro division, in which riders were obliged to rest off the bike for a total of 40 hours at specified points across

9040-421: The race was lengthened and gained more international participation. The Tour is a UCI World Tour event, which means that the teams that compete in the race are mostly UCI WorldTeams , with the exception of the teams that the organizers invite. Traditionally, the bulk of the race is held in July. While the route changes each year, the format of the race stays the same, and includes time trials, passage through

9153-400: The record as the first woman to win the overall solo division. As of 2023, women have been RAAM overall winners twice. This is an all-time list of winners of Race Across America in the Solo Traditional category. Tour de France The Tour de France ( French pronunciation: [tuʁ də fʁɑ̃s] ) is an annual men's multiple-stage bicycle race held primarily in France. It

9266-409: The record for most wins with Jacques Anquetil , Bernard Hinault and Eddy Merckx . Induráin was a strong time trialist , gaining on rivals and riding defensively in the climbing stages. Induráin won only two Tour stages that were not individual time trials : mountain stages to Cauterets (1989) and Luz Ardiden (1990) in the Pyrenees . These superior abilities in the discipline fit perfectly with

9379-446: The record of Eddy Merckx for all time stage wins with 34. Danish rider Jonas Vingegaard , second in 2021, won in both 2022 and 2023 , with Pogačar coming second both times. The 2022 race was followed by the Tour de France Femmes , the first official Tour de France for women since 1989. In 2024 , Pogačar took back the Tour title, winning by more than six minutes over Vingegaard while Tour debutant, Remco Evenepoel , rounded out

9492-529: The running of the race. Lévitan launched the Tour of America as a precursor to his plans to take the Tour de France to the US. The Tour of America lost much money, and it appeared to have been cross-financed by the Tour de France. In the years before 1987, Lévitan's position had always been protected by Émilien Amaury , the then owner of ASO , but Émilien Amaury would soon retire and leave son Philippe Amaury responsible. When Lévitan arrived at his office on 17 March 1987, he found that his doors were locked and he

9605-455: The series to a total of 6 events, all parts of the 2019 championship. Final 2019 Rankings after the race in Taiwan - as of November 15, 2019. Participants enter the season ranking once they have completed, as finishers, 2 BikingMan races The 2020 season will be composed of 6 events with new routes unveiled on Oman, Corsica, Peru and Laos. Brazil will be part of the series for its first time. The crown jewel event incadivide will unveil

9718-414: The shortest elapsed time for a solo crossing of the United States was outside of an official RAAM, by Michael Secrest in 1990, in 7 days, 23 hours, and 16 minutes. Again, this record was narrowly broken in 2013 by RAAM winner Christoph Strasser, who in 2014 set the current mark of 7:15:56. In comparison, in 1953 Corporal Donald Mainland, USMC (retired), raced from Santa Monica, California to New York City,

9831-409: The sport to its core when it became apparent that there was systematic doping going on in the sport. Numerous riders and a handful of teams were either thrown out of the race, or left of their own free will, and in the end Marco Pantani survived to win his lone Tour in a decimated main field. The 1999 Tour de France was billed as the ‘Tour of Renewal’ as the sport tried to clean up its image following

9944-522: The sporting side, and Lévitan the financial. On the Tour's return, the format of the race settled on between 20 and 25 stages. Most stages would last one day, but the scheduling of 'split' stages continued well into the 1980s. 1953 saw the introduction of the Green Jersey 'Points' competition. National teams contested the Tour until 1961 . The teams were of different sizes. Some nations had more than one team, and some were mixed in with others to make up

10057-412: The stages are timed to the finish and the riders' times are compounded with their previous stage times. The rider with the lowest cumulative time is the leader of the race and wears the yellow jersey. While the general classification attracts the most attention, there are other contests held within the Tour: the points classification for the sprinters (green jersey), the mountains classification for

10170-412: The stages are timed to the finish. The riders' times are compounded with their previous stage times; so the rider with the lowest aggregate time is the leader of the race. The leader is determined after each stage's conclusion: he gains the privilege to wear the yellow jersey, presented on a podium in the stage's finishing town, for the next stage. If he is leading more than one classification that awards

10283-434: The street to raise the price of a hotel. Until 1925, Desgrange forbade team members from pacing each other. The 1927 and 1928 Tours, however, consisted mainly of team time-trials , an unsuccessful experiment which sought to avoid a proliferation of sprint finishes on flat stages. Until 1930 , Desgrange demanded that riders mend their bicycles without help and that they use the same bicycle from start to end. Exchanging

10396-431: The time trial heavy Tours of the era, with many featuring between 150 and 200 km of time trialling vs the more common 50–80 km today. The influx of more international riders continued through this period, as in 1996 the race was won for the first time by a rider from Denmark, Bjarne Riis , who ended Miguel Induráin's reign with an attack on Hautacam . On 25 May 2007, Bjarne Riis admitted that he placed first in

10509-426: The tour, a tall order with two previous winners in the field— Charly Gaul and Federico Bahamontes —but he did it. His victories in stage races such as the Tour were built on an exceptional ability to ride alone against the clock in individual time trial stages, which lent him the name "Monsieur Chrono" . Anquetil enjoyed a rivalry with Raymond Poulidor , who was known as " The Eternal Second ", because he never won

10622-465: The underhand tactics of bike factories. When in 1929 the Alcyon team contrived to get Maurice De Waele to win even though he was sick, he said, "My race has been won by a corpse". In 1930 , Desgrange again attempted to take control of the Tour from teams, insisting competitors enter in national teams rather than trade teams and that competitors ride plain yellow bicycles that he would provide, without

10735-495: The war, when French cycling was at a high. L'Équipe was given the right to organise the 1947 Tour de France . However, L'Équipe ' s finances were never sound, and Goddet accepted an advance by Émilion Amaury, who had supported his bid to run the postwar Tour. Amaury was a newspaper magnate whose sole condition was that his sports editor, Félix Lévitan , should join Goddet for the Tour. The two worked together—with Goddet running

10848-400: The winner. The leader in the first Tour de France was awarded a green armband. The yellow jersey (the color was chosen as the newspaper that created the Tour, L'Auto , was printed on yellow paper), was added to the race in the 1919 edition and it has since become a symbol of the Tour de France. The first rider to wear the yellow jersey was Eugène Christophe . Riders usually try to make

10961-469: The years. However, in the Race Across America, the direction has always been from the west coast to the east coast of the United States, approximately 3,000 miles (4,800 km), making it a transcontinental event. More importantly, the race has no stages, i.e., it is a nonstop event from start to finish, with the fastest competitors needing slightly over 7 days to complete the course. By contrast,

11074-407: The years. In 2008, for example, these were: There have been three fatalities in the race's history. In 2003, team rider Brett Malin was killed when he was hit by an 18-wheel tractor-trailer outside Pie Town, New Mexico . In 2005, solo participant Bob Breedlove was killed in a collision with an oncoming vehicle near Trinidad, Colorado . Details are lacking because he was by himself (his support crew

11187-468: Was a few miles behind) and the only witnesses were in the vehicle that collided with him. Outside magazine investigated the crash in its November 2006 issue. On June 16, 2010, participant Diego Ballesteros Cucurull of Spain was critically injured when he was struck by a car near Wichita, Kansas. A little less than one month later, Ballesteros was home in Spain and undergoing rehabilitation. While not regaining

11300-467: Was again disrupted by War after 1939, and did not return until 1947 . In 1944, L'Auto was closed—its doors nailed shut—and its belongings, including the Tour, sequestrated by the state for publishing articles too close to the Germans. Rights to the Tour were therefore owned by the government. Jacques Goddet was allowed to publish another daily sports paper, L'Équipe , but there was a rival candidate to run

11413-560: Was fired. The organisation of the 1987 Tour de France was taken over by Jean-François Naquet-Radiguet. He was not successful in acquiring more funds, and was fired within one year. Months before the start of the 1988 Tour, director Jean-François Naquet-Radiguet was replaced by Xavier Louy. In 1988, the Tour was organised by Jean-Pierre Courcol , the director of L'Équipe , then in 1989 by Jean-Pierre Carenso and then by Jean-Marie Leblanc , who in 1989 had been race director. The former television presenter Christian Prudhomme —he commentated on

11526-399: Was he soundly defeated, and this was by Laurent Fignon in 1984 . In 1986 , Hinault, who had won the year before with American rider Greg LeMond supporting him, publicly pledged to ride in support of LeMond. Several attacks during the race cast doubt on the sincerity of his promise, leading to a rift between the two riders and the entire La Vie Claire team, before LeMond prevailed. It

11639-548: Was highly competitive, and the lead changed hands eight times before Stephen Roche won. When Roche won the World Championship Road Race later in the season, he became only the second rider (after Merckx) to win cycling's Triple Crown , which meant winning the Giro d'Italia , the Tour and the Road World Cycling Championship in one calendar year. Lévitan helped drive an internationalization of

11752-404: Was in the maillot jaune late in the Tour, in position to win, when his own team sacked him for a possible doping infraction; this allowed the rising star Contador to ride mistake-free for the remaining stages to win his first. 2008 saw a Tour where so many riders were doping that, when it went ten days without a single doping incident, it became news. It was during this Tour that a UCI official

11865-543: Was influential in facilitating the participation in the 1983 Tour by amateur riders from the Eastern Bloc and Colombia. In 1984, for the first time, the Société du Tour de France organized the Tour de France Féminin , a version for women. It was run in the same weeks as the men's version, and it was won by Marianne Martin . While the global awareness and popularity of the Tour grew during this time, its finances became stretched. Goddet and Lévitan continued to clash over

11978-471: Was no alternate winner named. Team Sky dominated the event for several years, with wins for Bradley Wiggins , Chris Froome (four times) and Geraint Thomas before Egan Bernal became the first Colombian winner in 2019. The streak was interrupted only by Vincenzo Nibali 's 2014 win. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the 2020 Tour started in late August, the first time since the end of World War II that

12091-671: Was organized by John Marino in 1982. There were four competitors: John Marino himself, John Howard , Michael Shermer , and Lon Haldeman . The course started in Santa Monica, California and finished at the Empire State Building in New York City , where Haldeman emerged as the winner. Results of the 1982 race: After the first year, the name of the event changed to Race Across America, and participation became subject to qualification rather than invitation. The concept caught on and

12204-406: Was quickly flown to a hospital, where he went into a coma. He later stabilized and flown back to Denmark. However, he remained in a coma until his death on February 16, 2018. On June 18, 2018, while in 3rd place, Austrian rider Thomas Mauerhofer was hit by a car while he made a left turn. He broke his sixth cervical vertebra and had to quit the race. Cervical vertebrae 5 to 7 had to be fused and

12317-481: Was quoted as saying, "These guys are crazy, and the sooner they start learning, the better." Roger Legeay , a Directeur Sportif for one of the teams noted how riders were secretly and anonymously buying doping products on the internet. Like Greg LeMond at the beginning of the EPO era, 2008 winner Carlos Sastre was a rider who went his entire career without a single doping incident and between approximately 1994 and 2011 this

12430-521: Was staged in 1903. The plan was a five-stage race from 31 May to 5 July, starting in Paris and stopping in Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux, and Nantes before returning to Paris. Toulouse was added later to break the long haul across southern France from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. Stages would go through the night and finish next afternoon, with rest days before riders set off again. But this proved too daunting and

12543-405: Was the first ever victory for a rider from outside of Europe. The 1986 Tour is widely considered to be one of the most memorable in the history of the sport due to the battle between LeMond and Hinault. The 1987 edition was more uncertain than past editions, as previous winners Hinault and Zoetemelk had retired, LeMond was absent, and Fignon was suffering from a lingering injury. As such, the race

12656-524: Was the only Tour to have a winner with a clear biological passport. 2009 saw the return of Lance Armstrong and, strangely, after Contador was able to defeat his teammate, the Danish National Anthem was mistakenly played. No Danish rider was in contention in 2009, and Rasmussen, the only Danish rider capable of winning the Tour during this era, was not even in the race. Another rider absent was Floyd Landis, who had asked Armstrong to get him back on

12769-431: Was then impossible to follow the frontiers, and the Tour increasingly zig-zagged across the country, sometimes with unconnected days' races linked by train, while still maintaining some sort of loop. The Tour returned to national teams for 1967 and 1968 as "an experiment". The Tour returned to trade teams in 1969 with a suggestion that national teams could come back every few years, but this has not happened since. In

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